DiCaprio and other celebrity activists should plan a trip to China to educate themselves

Saturday’s column on Leonardo DiCaprio unleashed lots of reader reaction, as I expected, including dozens of emails (some pretty hostile) and scores of online comments.

In general, the reaction falls into two camps: first, those who generally see Hollywood activist-celebs like DiCaprio as hypocrites who don’t walk their own talk, who live opulent lives that generate enormous carbon footprints, yet pose as environmental defenders.

It’s no surprise that my views largely align with this group.

The second faction seems largely comprised of idealistic 20 and 30-somethings – judging from their Facebook photos – who want a cleaner environment but generally have unrealistic or simplistic ideas about how to achieve it. They seem to regard renewable energy – wind and solar power – as some kind of magic pill that has the power to transform a fossil fuel dependent planet into the Garden of Eden.

They rarely offer practical or realistic solutions about how to achieve this, but are often quick to lash out at those who challenge them, or who dare criticize the likes of DiCaprio, who live lavish lives but want the rest of us to turn a blind eye to their own over-consumption.

I didn’t mention it in my Saturday column, since I wasn’t aware of this when I wrote it, but DiCaprio and 21 of his friends recently used one of the world’s largest superyachts, an energy-guzzling 482-foot behemoth called the Topaz, in order to watch the recent World Cup in Brazil in high style.

The yacht is the 5th largest in the world, according to news reports, and is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. That’s right. It’s oil money that paid for the fancy yacht that Leo and his pals used to watch the World Cup.

Sheikh Mansour, who has an estimated personal wealth of around $4 billion US, and DiCaprio appear to be rather good friends, in fact. In April of this year, DiCaprio reportedly teamed up with actors Jamie Foxx and Orlando Bloom to host a 1980s theme party on the Topaz in New York. According to the New York Daily News, it was attended by about 100 guests.

The vessel includes a swimming pool, a fitness gym, a cinema, a large conference room and a deck top jacuzzi. Oh, it is also outfitted with a helicopter landing pad.

Mind you, I don’t begrudge Leo enjoying his wealth, his celebrity status, the company of supermodel girlfriends or his right to think whatever he wants to think about the oil industry. It’s a free world, after all.

But I do resent DiCaprio’s tendency to say one thing and do another, to live the big life while lecturing the rest of use plebes on how we need to clean up the planet. He may fool the naive and altruistic among us who regard celebrities as seers and visionaries pointing the way to a greener future. But he doesn’t fool anyone who is willing to take a hard look at what is a profoundly complex issue.

It is an issue that adults will eventually solve. I’m confident of that. It’s too bad that DiCaprio and others of his ilk – Robert Redford, Neil Young, Daryl Hannah et al – seem so utterly incapable of having an adult conversation about it.

My son just moved to Tianjin China. It’s southwest of Beijing. He’ll be teaching the BC curriculum at a private high school there for the next two years. He sent me photos of what the world looks like outside a friend’s highrise apartment.

On a good day, it looks wonderful. Blue sky, green grass, modern architecture. On a bad day – and there are many, many bad days in Tianjin and other major Chinese cities – the air looks like nothing ever seen in a province like Alberta, or anywhere in North America, for that matter.

It is an impenetrable gray haze, full of small particulate matter from coal-fired generating plants. The sun looks like a dull distant lamp, if it is visible at all.

If this planet has any hope of curbing carbon emissions it must at least focus on the major sources of those emissions. The oilsands will never ever remotely be a major global source of carbon emissions. At present they account for roughly 0.015 per cent of global emissions, while Canada as a whole generates roughly 1.6 per cent of global emissions.

Critics can say whatever they want in an effort to torture or twist the facts. But they are indisputable. The oilsands amount to little more than a rounding error when it comes to global carbon emissions.

That’s not to say Canada shouldn’t do a better job of addressing its own environmental issues. Of course it should. Criticism in this regard is justified, constructive, and in many cases deserved. The Journal covers environmental issues in the oilsands regularly, and will continue to do so. That’s great.

But the outsized focus on one emissions source- the oilsands – is hardly constructive. Indeed, the conspicuous fixation that DiCaprio and other Hollywood celebs seem to have on the oilsands suggests that their agenda isn’t exclusively or even primarily about cleaning up the planet at all. It is more likely a political agenda.

As loyal supporters of U.S. President Barack Obama, who won office with heavy support from the environmental lobby and whose Democratic Party faces key mid-term elections in just a couple of months, it seems more plausible to me at least that DiCaprio, Robert Redford, James Cameron and other high-profile Hollywood stars are simply using their celebrity to juice the Democratic Party’s coffers and reinvigorate political support.

It’s hardly surprising, for example, that California billionaire and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer – an outspoken oilsands critic and high-profile opponent of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline – is the Democratic Party’s number one individual campaign contributor. Steyer, by the way, has thus far refused to disclose what his current holdings are in the fossil fuel industry, although there have been a number of reports in the U.S. media chronicling his extensive past holdings in coal mines and other energy assets.

But let’s get back to DiCaprio, and his current anti-carbon campaign. Since he chose to spend time in Fort McMurray this week, and not on his UAE pal’s massive yacht, it seems likely that he plans to use the oilsands as a backdrop for some future anti-oil documentary. Fair enough. As I say, it’s a free world, and he’s entitled to his views.

But his tendency to see the world in dumbed-down black-and-white terms (check out his recently released eight-minute film Carbon, for a taste) and his simplistic portrayal of what is undoubtedly an extremely complex issue merely polarizes opinion. It does nothing to inform a public that desperately needs to be informed so it can at least engage in a more adult discussion about how to address the issues.

China, the world’s largest and fastest-growing emitter of greenhouse gases – not to mention various other environmental hazards – currently accounts for roughly a quarter of global emissions. I give China credit. The Communist government is trying to address its horrendous environmental issues, and is rolling out renewable energy and natural gas fired power at an impressive clip.

Still, it will take an enormous effort and literally trillions of dollars over the next 10 to 20 years to cap China’s emissions and to begin to reverse the trend. That’s where the real fight will be fought. Not in the oilsands.

So I’d suggest DiCaprio and his Hollywood celebrity pals take a trip to Beijing, educate themselves on how to be valuable allies in China’s fight to clean up its environment, and become part of the solution, not mere posers seeking applause from their devoted and often naive fans.

I’m serious. It’s time to engage China and other Asian nations on this issue. I personally believe that helping China transition away from coal and toward cleaner-burning natural gas or LNG is the only reasonable way forward. The West needs to find ways to accelerate this transition, even if it means direct financial support. Now that’s a conversation worth having.

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DiCaprio and other celebrity activists should plan a trip to China to educate themselves

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